US VP Vance said to eye visit to Israel; White House denies he’ll come this week
‘Logistical constraints have precluded an extension of his travel beyond Rome,’ US official says, after Hebrew media report he could come Tuesday on way home after pope’s inauguration
US Vice President JD Vance is reportedly planning a visit to Israel, though a White House official on Sunday denied a report that such a stopover would take place this week, after US President Donald Trump skipped the country during his Middle East trip.
Hebrew media outlets said that talks were underway to schedule a visit, and Channel 12 news reported that Tuesday was shaping up as the scheduled day for the trip. However, a White House official rejected the report.
“Media reports that the Vice President will visit Israel are false,” said the official, adding that Vance — who attended the inauguration mass of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in Rome on Sunday — will return to Washington on Monday.
“While the Secret Service has engaged in contingency planning for the addition of several potential countries, no additional visits were at any point decided upon, and logistical constraints have precluded an extension of his travel beyond Rome,” the official said.
Reports of the expected visit came as a new round of negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal between Hamas and Israel began in Qatar on Saturday, and after the Israeli military launched a new expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Unsourced reports said that a potential Vance visit, which would be his first ever to the country, would focus on those developments.
Trump visited the Middle East last week, stopping in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and sparking concerns that Israel was being left out of Washington’s regional diplomatic initiatives as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government continues the war in Gaza.
Asked Saturday by Fox News if he was frustrated by the Israeli prime minister, Trump responded: “No, look, he’s got a tough situation. You have to remember, there was October 7 that everyone forgets. It was one of the most violent days in the history of the world — not the Middle East, the world, when you look at the tapes.”
Israeli and Hamas delegations traveled to Qatar last week after the terror group released American-Israeli hostage soldier Edan Alexander as part of an agreement with Washington that did not involve Israel.
However, according to reports, those talks have made little progress, with both sides entrenched in their usual positions: Israel demanding only a temporary truce so long as Hamas is undefeated, and the terror organization insisting on an end to the war.
The IDF announced late Friday, meanwhile, that it had launched the first stages of a previously announced major offensive in the Gaza Strip, dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots,” that will seek to “seize strategic areas” of the Strip.
Israel had warned Hamas that it would launch the campaign if no headway was made in negotiations by the time Trump ended his regional trip.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 58 hostages, of whom 57 are among the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023 during a devastating invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF, one of which is of an IDF soldier killed in 2014. There are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.
Vance is considered a leading isolationist among the Republicans. Last October, during an interview, he said that while Israel has the right to defend itself, “America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct.”
The Times of Israel Community.